Mississippi Rent Increase & Notice Rules: How Much Warning a Landlord Must Give

In Mississippi, there is no law that caps how much a landlord can raise the rent, and there is no statewide rent control or rent stabilization. What the law does control is timing. The controlling section is Miss. Code Ann. § 89-8-19, part of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: a month-to-month tenancy can be ended by either side on at least 30 days' written notice before the termination date, and a week-to-week tenancy on at least 7 days' written notice. Because a rent increase means changing the terms of the tenancy, that same 30-day notice is the practical floor for raising rent on a month-to-month. You can read the current text of the whole Act, reprinted verbatim by the Legislature, in House Bill 1580 (2024).

Two exceptions matter enormously and are covered below: a tenant who holds over after a fixed-term lease expires can face a 3-day notice, not a 30-day one (§ 89-8-17(2)); and no termination notice at all is required from either side where there has been a substantial violation that materially affects health or safety (§ 89-8-19(4)).

Raising rent on a month-to-month tenancy

Mississippi has no statute that says "a rent increase requires X days' notice" the way some states do. Instead, a month-to-month tenancy renews each month on the same terms unless one side gives proper notice to change or end it. To raise the rent, the landlord effectively ends the old terms and proposes new ones — which takes the same advance notice used to terminate the tenancy under § 89-8-19(3).

• The working notice period is 30 days in writing before the new rent takes effect. If you pay weekly rent, your tenancy is week-to-week by default and the notice period is 7 days (§ 89-8-19(1)–(2)).
• The notice should clearly state the new rent amount and the date it starts.
• There is no dollar limit and no percentage cap on how large the increase can be in Mississippi.
• Rent increases remain subject to federal fair-housing law, which bars raising rent on someone because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status.

If you receive a rent increase with little or no warning, ask the landlord in writing which notice period they relied on and check your lease. An increase that skips the notice period generally is not enforceable until proper notice has run — you still owe the old rent in the meantime, so keep paying it and keep proof.

Retaliation: what Mississippi actually protects (and what it does not)

Be careful here, because this is where general advice written for other states goes wrong. Mississippi's Act contains no general anti-retaliation prohibition. The single retaliation limit sits inside § 89-8-17(2), and it is written as a permission: after a rental agreement expires, a landlord may demand an increase in rent so long as the increase "did not have the dominant purpose of retaliation against the tenant for his actions authorized under this chapter and the landlord received written notice of each condition which was the subject of such actions of the tenant." Read the text in Senate Bill 2461 (2022), the act that wrote this language into the statute.

• The standard is "dominant purpose" of retaliation — not merely that a rent hike happened to follow a complaint.
• The tenant conduct that counts is "actions authorized under this chapter" — the rights the Act itself gives you, such as written notice of a defect and the repair remedy under §§ 89-8-15 and 89-8-23. A phone call to a city code office is not, by itself, an action authorized under the chapter.
• The landlord must have "received written notice of each condition". A tenant who never put the problem in writing to the landlord has no retaliation shield at all.

The practical takeaway: if something is wrong with your unit, put it in writing to your landlord and keep a copy, before you complain anywhere else. In Mississippi that written notice is the step that creates your leverage. Verbal complaints leave you with nothing to point to.

Ending a month-to-month tenancy

Under § 89-8-19(3), 30 days' written notice before the termination date is the rule, and it runs both directions.

• Landlord ending the tenancy: the landlord must give at least 30 days' written notice. This is a notice to end the tenancy, not an instant eviction; if the tenant does not leave, the landlord still has to file in court. The Act defines the "court" as a justice court, county court, or circuit court (§ 89-8-7), and most residential evictions are filed in Justice Court.
• Tenant ending the tenancy: a tenant leaving a month-to-month must also give at least 30 days' written notice, ideally lined up with the rent due date, to avoid owing an extra month.
• Week-to-week: 7 days' written notice, either direction (§ 89-8-19(2)). If you pay rent weekly and your agreement has no definite term, this is you.
• The health-or-safety exception — no notice required. Section 89-8-19(4) says that "notwithstanding" anything else in the chapter, "notice to terminate a tenancy shall not be required to be given when the landlord or tenant has committed a substantial violation of the rental agreement or this chapter that materially affects health or safety." If your landlord has committed such a violation — think no heat, no water, raw sewage — you are not required to sit out a 30-day notice period. It cuts the other way too: a tenant whose own conduct materially threatens health or safety can be terminated without the 30 days.

Notice that ends a tenancy is a different animal from notice tied to nonpayment or a lease violation. Under § 89-8-13, a material breach generally gets a 14-day notice and a chance to cure, while nonpayment of rent gets a 3-day notice.

Fixed-term leases: no mid-lease increases — but watch the holdover trap

If you signed a fixed-term lease (say, a one-year lease at a set monthly rent), the landlord generally cannot raise the rent in the middle of the term. The rent is locked at the agreed amount until the lease ends, unless the lease itself contains a clause allowing an increase, or both sides agree in writing.

• Read your lease for any "rent adjustment," "tax pass-through," or renewal-pricing clause.
• A landlord can propose a higher rent when the fixed term ends and a renewal is offered. Section 89-8-17(1) is blunt: "A rental agreement that fixes a definite term expires on the date stated in the rental agreement."
• Do not assume you get 30 days after your lease ends. Under § 89-8-17(2), at any time after the lease expires the landlord may notify a holdover tenant, in writing (or by email or text if you agreed to that), that the landlord "will commence eviction proceedings no earlier than three (3) days after such notice is provided." Section 89-8-31(b), as amended by Senate Bill 2328 (2025), expressly lets a landlord evict "for failing to vacate after the termination or expiration of the rental agreement." The 30-day rule attaches once a genuine month-to-month tenancy has arisen — not automatically to everyone whose lease ran out.

So if your fixed term is ending and you have not signed a renewal or reached a clear month-to-month understanding, treat the expiration date as a real deadline. Get any month-to-month arrangement in writing.

Rent control: legally impossible in Mississippi, not just absent

Mississippi has no statewide rent control or rent stabilization — and no Mississippi city or county can create one either. Under Miss. Code Ann. § 21-17-5(2)(h), municipalities may not, "without prior legislative approval, regulate, directly or indirectly, the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential property in which the municipality does not have a property interest." Section 19-3-40(3)(g) imposes the identical bar on counties. Both are reprinted in Senate Bill 2447 (2024).

In other words, a local rent cap is preempted by state law. Do not spend time calling city hall hoping to find one. Cities and counties can still regulate housing code, inspections, and rental registration — those are worth a call — but not the amount of your rent. Separately, federally subsidized or income-restricted housing (Section 8 vouchers, public housing, tax-credit units) follows its own federal rules that can limit increases regardless of state law, and those rules give you rights this page does not cover.

When to get help

Most notice questions can be settled by reading your lease against § 89-8-19. Talk to a Mississippi tenant or landlord attorney, or a local legal aid office, if you are served a holdover or eviction notice, if a termination notice looks too short, if you believe a rent increase had the dominant purpose of retaliating against you for exercising a right under the Act, or if you live in subsidized housing where extra protections apply.

This article is general legal information for Mississippi, not legal advice. Landlord-tenant law changes and can have local city or county exceptions, so confirm the current Mississippi rules or consult a Mississippi attorney before acting on a deadline.

Official Legal Sources for Mississippi

This page is based on Mississippi state landlord–tenant law. Laws change — verify the current text directly against the official sources below. This is general legal information, not legal advice.

• Mississippi landlord–tenant statutes (full text) — reproduced on this site from the public-domain Mississippi Code, because Mississippi publishes its official code only through a commercial service.
• Mississippi State Department of Health — Guide to Reducing Health Hazards and Managing Repairs (tenant/landlord rights and repair duties) — official state resource.

Local ordinances may apply. This page covers Mississippi state law. Your city or county may add protections — such as rent control, just-cause eviction, rental registration, or stricter housing codes — that change these rules. Check your local city or county ordinances.